Democratic Party leadership candidate Kim Min-seok on Wednesday raised the possibility of impeaching Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae over delays in nominating a successor to Supreme Court Justice Roh Tae-ak.
In a post on social media, Kim wrote that "judicial reform must follow prosecutorial reform," criticizing Chief Justice Cho for delaying the nomination of Roh's replacement while proceeding with the selection process for the successor to Justice Lee Heung-gu, who is scheduled to retire in September.
Kim argued that Cho's failure to act amounted to a serious dereliction of duty. He questioned how the situation differed from the case involving former Acting President and Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok, who was indicted over delays in appointing Constitutional Court justices, warning that the chief justice could face impeachment for failing to promptly nominate Roh's successor.
Kim also identified exchange-traded funds (ETFs), housing taxation, and judicial reform as the Democratic Party's three most pressing policy issues.
Referring to recent volatility in the stock market, he said public concern had reached an emergency level and argued that the party should respond accordingly. He called for strong corrective measures on the ETF issue and proposed expanding the party's related policy body to include private-sector market experts, with the party leader taking direct responsibility for overseeing the matter.
On housing policy, Kim said property taxation had become an issue of exceptional public concern. He proposed holding an intensive public consultation process over the next two months to determine the direction of housing tax policy and suggested establishing a permanent public deliberation body on housing policy.
He also called on the party to begin research into a "mega housing New Deal" that would dramatically expand investment in housing supply, public redevelopment projects, and housing welfare.
Posted by Freewhale98
1 Comment
1. Summary
Democratic Party leadership candidate Kim Min-soek proposed the impeachment of conservative supreme court justices over their delayed judicial appointment.
2. How is this related to the sub
(1) Judicial reforms: Conservative Supreme Court of Korea is delaying judicial appointment after Democratic Party added 22 justices to Supreme Court. Conservative judges are accusing the government of court packing and refusing to appoint replacement.
3. My opinion
To understand why this impeachment proposal came out, you need to understand judicial appointment process of Korea. The President appoints on the chief justice. The chief justice than arrange “recommendation committee” where he picks candidates he wants to “recommend” to the president. The president can only pick judicial appointment from in that pool of “recommended candidates”. If chief justice just doesn’t make that pool, president cannot make the appointment of supreme court justices. The conservative supreme court exploited that loophole and just didn’t give the “candidate pool” to the president for replacement and expansion of supreme court.